WHO WE ARE: The songs Australia loved in 2012

THERE'S a weird connection between Australia and Sweden, and I don’t just mean our obsession with Abba.

The biggest selling tampon in Australia is made by SCA, a Swedish company. We spend $60 million a year on these souvenirs of the deep north – not unusual in itself, but part of a mysterious pattern.

Then there’s the matter of The Phantom. Sweden and Australia are the world’s biggest consumers of the comics about the cave-dwelling crusader who wore his undies outside his purple tights. The Phantom was created in 1936 by an American named Lee Falk, who died in 1999. Right into the 21st century, Sweden and Australia kept publishing Phantom comics, often using stories by local writers and illustrations by local artists.

Faltskog Photo: Gus Stewart

Perhaps it was this shared Phantom-fandom that caused the Swedes to become so focussed on our own great crusader Julian Assange. They insisted he be extradited from London to answer questions about sexual assault allegations, when it would have been easier and cheaper to send a couple of detectives from Stockholm to London to interview him. He has now become The Ghost Who Walks.

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And of course there’s the music. The Best of Abba is the fourth best selling album of all time in Australia (after Whispering Jack, Bat Out of Hell and Brothers in Arms). We’ve bought 1.21 million copies since its release in 1975, and 720,000 of Abba, released the same year, and 980,000 of Arrival, released in 1976, and 830,000 of Abba Gold, released in 1992. After the quartet broke up in the late 70s, Australia formed a tribute band called Bjorn Again and exported it back to Europe, where it has spawned its own tribute bands.

We fired up an Abba revival in 1994 by including their music in two movies – Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert -- and then bought more than 500,000 copies of the DVD of the movie Mamma Mia!, released in 2008, making it our number eight top selling DVD of all time. Just this year, we bought 140,000 copies of Abba’s latest album, 18 Hits.

Moore

Call it the Stockholm Syndrome if you like. It’s definitely pathological, and it continued this year when one of our top ten singles was by a group called Swedish House Mafia.

Unlike The Righteous Brothers, who were not brothers, and the Dresden Dolls, who were not German, the three members of Swedish House Mafia do actually come from Sweden – as does their mate John Martin, who co-wrote and sang on Don’t You Worry Child. But look at what Wikipedia says, in a form of English clearly written by a Scandinavian, about its origins: “The song was announced during the Swedish House Mafia's tour of Australia in early 2012 whilst they played at Future Music Festival 2012. They say it was made from the inspiration they took from the beauty of Australia and was said to have made grown men cry.”

So SHM are the ABBA of 2012. This is what else we learned from the way Australians bought music this year:

Adkins Photo: Mari Sarii

For Australians, the musical superstar of the 21st century is … You probably thought I was going to say P!nk, who seemed to be here more than she was in the US, and who sold us 800,000 copies of her album Funhouse and 790,000 copies of her album I’m Not Dead and 420,000 this year of The Truth About Love. Unless you thought it was Susan Boyle, who sold us 740,000 copies of I Dreamed A Dream and 140,000 of Someone To Watch Over Me.

You’d be wrong on both. Last week Adele’s album 21 reached a million sales – a figure it achieved in just 23 months of release during the poorest sales period in musical history. The last album to pass a million in this country was Delta Goodrem’s Innocent Eyes, released in 2003.

Being a TV star doesn’t make you a music star More than four million Australians watched Karise Eden, Keith Urban and Delta Goodrem this year on The Voice. Yet Eden’s album, My Journey, sold only 140,000, and her single Hallelujah sold 70,000. Urban’s album The Story So Far sold 70,000. Goodrem’s single, Sitting on Top of the World, sold 140,000. Reece Mastin, winner of The X-Factor in 2011, did a little better, selling 140,000 of his self-titled album and 280,000 of his single Good Night. But this year’s X-Factor winner, Samantha Jade, has so far managed just 70,000 of her single What You’ve Done To Me.

Sebastian Photo: Supplied

Huge publicity doesn’t necessarily mean huge sales Psy’s Gangnam Style sold 490,000 copies this year – pretty impressive, but nowhere near the 840,000 of last year’s top single, Party Rock Anthem. Why? Because half a million fans didn’t feel the need to pay for it. Google announced last week that the Youtube video of Psy doing the pony was Australia’s number one search of 2012. And it was free!

What do we conclude? Unless you're Adele, the money’s in live performances these days, not in recordings. Unless you’re Swedish, of course, when you can be confident of starting a cult that will keep Australians enthralled for three decades.

You have just read the Who We Are column, by David Dale. It appears in printed form every Sunday in The Sun-Herald, and also as a blog on this website, where it welcomes your comments. David Dale teaches communications at UTS, Sydney. He is the author of The Little Book of Australia -- A snapshot of who we are (Allen and Unwin). For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark The Tribal Mind.

2 comments so far

P!nk (I hope I spelled that right). I suppose one reason for her being here so much - wasn't she the lady who tried to destroy the Australian Wool export industry?

Commenter

OnesAndZeros

Date and time

December 23, 2012, 11:59AM

Big cheers from up North,

We love you too.

John Farnham, INXS, Kylie, Delta...

We are very proud of our musical exports, but cannot beat the proper Anglo-Saxon countries, of course; USA, Canada, Australia, UK, New Zealand; be loud and proud; you rule the (radio) waves for sure.

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